Great Heale Farmhouse

Great Heale Farmhouse

A farmhouse dating to the early 17th century, built of plastered cob on rubble footings with stone rubble or cob chimneys topped with 20th-century brick. The roof is thatched. The house follows a 3-room-and-through-passage plan, facing south, with the inner room positioned at the east end. The hall was floored from the outset and features a large axial stack backing onto the passage. The inner room has a rear lateral stack serving the ground floor and an end stack for the first floor. A stair block sits to the rear of the hall, with a 2-storey porch containing a garret fronting the main door. The building rises to 2 storeys.

The south-facing front is regular with 4 windows, plus a fifth on the porch front. The porch, positioned towards the left end, is gabled and has an ovolo-moulded outer arch. The first-floor window serving the service-room chamber to the left of the porch and the first-floor porch window retain original 2-light oak frames with ovolo-moulded mullions. The remaining windows are late 19th-century casements with glazing bars, positioned within what appear to be original embrasures. Two 20th-century sloping buttresses support the fabric: one to the right of centre props the hall-to-inner-room crosswall, and another supports the right end corner. The roof is half-hipped to the left and gable-ended to the right. The rear gabled stairblock displays original oak windows: a small ground-floor window with chamfered surround and iron glazing bar, and a first-floor 2-light window with ovolo-moulded mullion, iron glazing bars, and early leaded glass.

The interior is of exceptional quality and shows remarkable completeness as a single-period house. Internal crosswalls are of cob. Both passage and service room feature soffit-chamfered and scroll-stopped crossbeams. The large hall-parlour is exceptionally well-preserved with a 3-bay ceiling carried on richly-moulded crossbeams incorporating scroll stops with chiselled floral motifs. Joists are exposed with scratch-moulded soffits. The fireplace is open with painted plain jambs (probably granite), though the lintel is obscured by a later board. At the upper end stands the original bench, a plain thick oak plank. The back wall comprises 2 bays of high-quality oak wainscotting, each with 4 panels separated by delicately-moulded muntins featuring central hollow strips. The rails above and below carry continuous moulding. Above runs an upper frieze of 3 broad panels carved in bas-relief with Renaissance motifs including cornucopia and putti, topped by a moulded and dentil cornice over a chip-carved band. The front wall includes a cupboard with a panelled oak door.

The inner room contains a 19th-century chimney piece that blocks the original fireplace, and the axial beam has been boxed in. The original broad oak newel stair has a cupboard on the landing with plank doors on strap hinges. Double doors at the stair head sit beneath an oak lintel that is soffit-chamfered with scroll stops.

Most of the first floor was not available for inspection at the time of survey, and the roof space remains inaccessible. However, the plastered feet of trusses visible in the roof space suggest that original early 17th-century A-frame trusses of large scantling survive.

Great Heale is a fine example of an early 17th-century house of rich yeoman or lesser gentry status. For Devon, it is unusual in being a single-period house, though the medieval layout may suggest an early 17th-century rebuild of an earlier structure. It is remarkable above all for how little has been altered since its construction.